Tsarnaev Case Judge: FBI Interview Reports Are Unreliable—And Cast in Stone

FBI interview reports were used in Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s trial instead of witness testimony. Tsarnaev has been sentenced to death. Photo credit: FBI.GOV



The Federal Bureau of Intimidation?
The presiding judge in the case against convicted marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev warned jurors last week against automatically assuming the reliability of FBI interview reports.
US District Court Judge George O’Toole’s admonition inadvertently bolstered long-standing criticisms of FBI interview practices—that the FBI creates its own “truth” by refusing to electronically record interviews, and then forcing witnesses to go along with it using threats of jail time under the federal “making false statements” statute.
His warning came after he took the unusual step of allowing Tsarnaev’s defense team to read aloud FBI witness interviews, known as “302 reports,” from two of older brother Tamerlan’s friends. The defense team, as part of their “mitigating factors” strategy, read selected excerpts of the reports in order to show that Tamerlan was “radicalized” long before Dzhokhar was. Much of the partially redacted 302 reports were not read in court.
READ MORE:http://whowhatwhy.org/2015/05/20/tsarnaev-case-judge-fbi-interview-reports-are-unreliable-and-cast-in-stone/